My dear readers,

1. Footprints stalled by house moving

House moving is a “mini tribulation” relocation of a thousand household items turning into a dislocation of some important items and procedures. It is like an annoying game of hide-and-seek, and the house is like a lost articles department. The moving is over, but the sorting process goes on.

In the upheaval, my Footprints have gone into cold storage. We plan to take a four-week escape to Penang, hopefully to resume writing, away from the daily interruptions and care of the churches. Thank you for praying.

2. TONY BLAIR’S “NEW WORLD” INITIATIVE (Concluding)
Friday Church News Notes

The concept of faith by itself is not sufficient. This is the fundamental weakness in Mr Blair’s approach. It is not faith, but the object of faith that is all important. To believe what is true and right is good. To believe what is wrong is soul-destroying. Mr Blair says that it is not wrong to believe that one’s religion is the only true faith, yet to do that is implicitly if not openly to declare that all others are wrong. For example, Christianity and Islam are missionary religions, and must tell others that salvation is only to be found through what they declare. Other religious people may be content to live side by side without thinking it necessary to convert anyone to their way of thought. They offer a welcome to those who may join them, but they see no ultimate necessity for others to do that for their eternal good. With Christians and Muslims it is entirely different.

The Roman Church, on this point, appears to adopt an ambivalent approach. It has apparently ceased condemning all outside its pale as lost, arguing instead that the fullness of God’s grace is only to be enjoyed in that communion. It still aims for converts while becoming, outside extreme traditionalistic circles, much more universalistic in its speaking about salvation. Vatican II documents seem to indicate that non-Christians may be saved.

On past form most liberal Protestants would probably be happy with all that Mr Blair says. For us, though, that cannot be the right answer. We have a God-given responsibility to declare that there is salvation for none except those who are united with our Lord Jesus Christ by faith in Him. At the same time we know this will cause division. The Lord Jesus Himself has made that plain in Matthew 10:34-36 where He speaks about the effect that following Him will have within the natural family, let alone looser relationships. He warns His disciples that they will be hated by all men for His name’s sake (Matthew 10:22 ).

However friendly we may be, and however kind we may be to all others with whom we have contact, the gospel is bound to arouse some to enmity when what it says is made plain. The world does not like it, and yet we have to make it known. That for us is essential, because it is the truth we believe God has revealed in His Word, and at the heart of that message is the declaration that with Christ we are saved, without Him we are lost.

We do not try to foist this faith on others. We know we cannot do that. We are to witness, though, concerning God’s holiness, our sin and His provision in His love for our forgiveness through His Son, and do it in the knowledge that He will apply the message through the power of the Holy Spirit as He wills.

Can we do that successfully in the world Mr Blair describes? The simple answer is in the New Testament. The early church was born into a multi-religious, pluralistic society. It had to face the challenges of other religions as well as atheism. It had to survive under a political system that at times sought to destroy the growing church through thoroughgoing persecution. It had to cope with much more as other influences, including state acceptance and even encouragement, began to water down and change its original message. It did survive though, and Protestants are the evidence that it did.

How did it survive? By the grace of God continuing to work through the preaching of the gospel we find in the New Testament, and by the power of the Holy Spirit working in lives that were different from others around them, lives reflecting increasing likeness to the Lord Jesus. It is in Him we find the answer, and it is to Him that we owe it to be faithful in our own generation. The one key to our survival and progress lies in His authority and power to build His Church. Our loyalty to Him in obedient Spirit-filled living and testimony over-rides every other consideration.

We can live side by side with neighbours of different faiths to our own. We should show friendship to them, and do it for the Lord’s sake, not hiding what we believe but embodying something that only Christians can have, a new relationship with the living God. Our problem may well be not what other people are or think, but our failure to exercise a living faith in the Lord and to express it in a practical way. There is our greatest challenge, to stand for the truth in a Christ-like manner.

Our Saviour mixed freely with tax-collectors and sinners, but He never compromised His holiness. We cannot hope to approach that except through the power of the Holy Spirit, who alone can enable us to live holy and loving lives. We even find this hard to do with our fellow believers, despite the words of the apostle that we are “all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28 ). If we could face and overcome our problem here it would mark a real step forward in spiritual maturity.

At the same time we have to live in the place where God has set us and among the people God has given us as neighbours. They are our mission field. Our hope and our prayer should be that one day, by the grace of God and in some measure by our witness to them, some will become our brothers and sisters in Christ. That is surely to show them the greatest friendship of all. (Protestant Truth – July-August 2008).

Lovingly in the Lord
Dr SH Tow, Sr Pastor